The one thing I feared was a knife-thrust in the MELEE; but I had to run that risk, and the men were honest, and, thinking me drunk, indulgent.

In a trice I found myself on my back in the dirt, with my head humming; and heard the bars of the door fall noisily into their places.
I got up and went to the door, and, to play out my part, hammered on it frantically; crying out to them to let me in.

But the three travellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, coming to the window, with his head bleeding, shook his fist at me, and cursed me for a mischief-maker.
Baffled in this, I retired to a log which lay in the road a few paces from the house, and sat down on it to await events.

With torn clothes and bleeding face, hatless and covered with dirt, I was in little better case than my opponent.

It was raining, too, and the dripping branches swayed over my head.